Two UB startups win $50,000 in FuzeHub commercialization competition

Ferric Contrast and NanoHydroChem are among five winners in the statewide event

“This funding will help these companies advance their commercialization strategies, which was one of the major objectives of the competition.”

Elena Garuc, executive director

FuzeHub

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Two University at Buffalo startups have
each won $50,000 in a statewide commercialization competition
organized by FuzeHub, a nonprofit organization responsible for
assisting small- to medium-sized manufacturing companies in New
York State.

Ferric Contrast Inc. founded by UB chemistry professor Janet
Morrow, and NanoHydroChem LLC, co-founded by UB chemical and
biological engineering PhD candidate Parham Rohani and professor
Mark Swihart, were among five
winners in the event. The competition took place Nov. 15-16 in
Albany, with participants delivering pitches before a live
audience.

“FuzeHub is excited to announce these awards. This funding
will help these companies advance their commercialization
strategies, which was one of the major objectives of the
competition,” FuzeHub Executive Director Elena Garuc
said.

Both Ferric Contrast and NanoHydroChem plan to use the $50,000
prize money to further improve their technologies, which were
originally developed at UB.

A third startup that is commercializing a UB technology, Sunny Clean Water LLC,
did not win an award but was also among the competition’s 17
finalists.

The FuzeHub Commercialization Competition is supported by the
Jeff Lawrence Manufacturing Innovation Fund, which supports
activities designed to spur technology development and
commercialization across New York State. FuzeHub administers this
fund as part of FuzeHub’s role as the Empire State
Development-designated statewide Manufacturing Extension
Partnership center.

About Ferric Contrast

Janet Morrow.

Ferric Contrast is developing iron-based contrast agents that
can be used to produce high-quality magnetic resonance images of
the brain, vasculature, liver and kidneys, and for detection of
tumors resulting from cancer.

The technology could offer an alternative to the gadolinium
complexes that have traditionally been employed in magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI), says Morrow, PhD. Recent studies have
found that gadolinium can accumulate in the brain, bones and skin
of patients, a discovery that has spurred scientists to search for
new agents that do not build up in the body.

“There is a lot of potential for iron-based contrast
agents to be a gadolinium alternative. Iron is natural —
it’s found in hemoglobin, so it is in your blood,” says
Morrow, who founded Ferric Contrast with businessman and
entrepreneur Bradford La Salle. “Our contrast agents could be
particularly useful for people who need multiple MRI exams, or for
people who have poor kidney or heart function and have a difficult
time clearing gadolinium from their systems.”

Ferric Contrast is designing a suite of contrast agents
consisting of an iron ion housed inside an organic cage. The
company has used these molecules to obtain clear images of organs
including the kidneys and brain tumors in collaboration with Joseph
Spernyak, PhD, at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and will leverage
the FuzeHub prize money to create additional complexes that can be
directed to different parts of the body for imaging.

About NanoHydroChem

Parham Rohani.

NanoHydroChem is developing a method of creating hydrogen fuel
on demand.

The company’s technique involves mixing specially designed
boron nanoparticles with water at room temperature to generate
hydrogen gas. Potential applications for this technology range from
powering backup generators for remote cell phone towers to
dramatically extending the run-time of underwater and aerial drones
used in industrial applications like oil pipeline inspection.

The company will use the FuzeHub prize money on prototyping and
researching alternative methods of producing boron nanoparticles
that will lower the cost of large-scale manufacturing, says
Swihart, PhD, executive director of UB’s New York State
Center of Excellence in Materials Informatics.

“On-demand hydrogen generation is very safe because it
eliminates the challenge of storing hydrogen in gas form. Also,
there is no need for hydrogen infrastructure support. As long as
you have water and the material cartridge, hydrogen gas can be
generated,” says Rohani, who delivered the company’s
pitch at the 2017 FuzeHub Commercialization Competition.